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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29702688">turns out that nothing is fair</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/emilia_kaisa/pseuds/emilia_kaisa'>emilia_kaisa</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Figure Skating RPF</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Anxiety, Character Study, Falling In Love, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, LobbySameSameChallenge, Not Beta Read, Suffering, this is more of a Javi fic than a relationship fic tbh</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 16:47:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,104</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29702688</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/emilia_kaisa/pseuds/emilia_kaisa</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Javi falls in love for the first time during the summer of 2010. </p>
<p>It's the wrong time to fall in love, and the wrong place.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Javier Fernández/Sergei Voronov</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>turns out that nothing is fair</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>A fic written for a challenge where the prompt were lyrics from Tokio Hotel's 'Covered in Gold': </p>
<p> </p>
<p>  <em>Falling in and out of love is a part of us<br/>I keep hanging on to secret promises<br/>You broke me apart, like shattered glass<br/>Our love is gross, but I'm covered in gold<em></em></em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>  <em><br/><em>I hope you enjoy!</em></em><br/></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p>
<p>Javi falls in love for the first time during the summer of 2010. </p>
<p>But he won’t realize that until so much later, when he’ll be standing on the snow-covered streets of Moscow. He doesn’t know that during the next months his heart will be broken more than once, and not only his heart, but his spirit and soul and hopes he has been clinging to for his entire life. </p>
<p>But Javi doesn’t know that yet. Because currently he’s trying to get himself safely down an escalator at the Newark airport, balancing carefully on the stairs, his temples pulsing with a headache, limbs heavy after a long flight. He will need a couple of days to get himself in shape, and as much as he’s excited to start training again, there’s something sharp and cold rooted in his chest, a small grain in his right lung that sometimes blooms all of the sudden, clogging his airways and making him fight for every breath.</p>
<p>But he doesn’t think of it now; he thinks only about how much is still separating him from his bed, and a ten hours sleep he deserves. </p>
<p>He will reach a house in an hour and a half, and he will drift to sleep instantly, dreaming about things he’s not going to remember in the morning. </p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>The first time they look at each other, they smile.</p>
<p>He has blonde hair and bright eyes that crinkle every time he smiles, and he smiles so often, wide, with his whole body. He has a firm handshake and laughter that echoes in the cold air of the ice rink, and a triple axel that makes Javi’s head spin.</p>
<p>He has a terrible fashion sense and accent thicker than Javi’s, and he shrugs sheepishly when he doesn’t know what to say.</p>
<p>He’s nice, Javi thinks, and that’s all that first encounter leaves him with. </p>
<p>He doesn’t know that not so long from now he would recite the color of his eyes in the middle of the night, in darkness thick with the scent of salt and longing. </p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>Javi thinks he knows what falling in love feels like. </p>
<p>It’s sparks and butterflies and physicall attraction, it’s easy and fun and it’s with girls.</p>
<p>It’s not the feeling of calm he feels when they skate together, or sit together at lunch, or walk around the city with the rest of their friends and their elbows brush, just for a second.</p>
<p>It’s friendship and fondness, and mutual understanding that’s based on something more than their limited knowledge of one language they share. Javi’s mind is calm, and so is his heart, and he enjoyes the summer, the last summer of his teens, the summer of innocence and warmth, colored with golden light of the sunsets they watch together, scent of the pines swirling in the air and skin brushing against skin, just a little bit, just by an accident.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>His lips taste like vodka and orange juice and the world is spinning, their linked arms are the only thing keeping them grounded.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>It's the wrong time to fall in love, and the wrong place. </p>
<p>Javi realizes that when the first snowsnorm of the year covers Moscow with a thick white blanket, and he knows that they can’t even hold hands. </p>
<p>Why has no one ever told him that being in love can hurt so much?</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Do you know how it feels, having a secret that can destroy the life of yours and the person you gave your heart to? </p>
<p>Javi never wanted to find out, and yet there he is, and he’s scared.</p>
<p>It’s not right, he thinks, having to hide like that. It’s not right, and even though in some ways it seems to be making them stronger, Javi still doesn’t feel ready for that. He’s nineteen, and he never wanted to live like this, and even though his heart is full, that little grain in his lung seems to be heavier these days, its vines climbing up and slowly taking his body hostage.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Japan is the last straw.</p>
<p>Javi realizes that the life he has been living isn’t for him, and that he just wants to go home; and home is not in Moscow or any other town his coach chooses from the map, and home isn’t even in the arms of the person holding him during sleepless nights.</p>
<p>Home is in his childhood bedroom and under familiar stars.</p>
<p>He understands, and he lets Javi go, with calm that tells Javi that he knew since the very start that they were doomed, in a long shot. That maybe all they could give each other was always just a couple months of love and comfort that weren’t enough to heal their souls and chase Javi’s demons away.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Javi’s home, and even though he knows he made the right choice, his heart still beats with misery and longing during countless sleepless nights, when the fear of the future sits heavily on his chest, making it hard to breathe. </p>
<p>He’s still in love, and he still feels broken, and sometimes he just wishes he could stop feeling at all, everything good and bad just disappearing, because even numbness would be better than that. He feels like he has disappointed everyone, his parents, his sister, every teacher he ever had, himself. He’s a sailor sweeped from his boat and he doesn’t have enough strength to climb back in, even though there are arms reaching to help him, but their fingers are slipping from his grip.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>He’s afraid to hope when a new chance appears.</p>
<p>But there are still dreams living inside him, and on some of them he can’t give up just yet, so on a warm summer morning his dad drives him to the airport, and the world is bathed in melted gold. His heart skips a beat when he boards the plane, echo of old fears ringing in the back of his head. </p>
<p>And then, he leaves the continent once again, and the sun is so blinding he has to close his eyes when tears start prickling in the corners. He leaves once again, he leaves his home, his family, and maybe he manages to leave a bit of a heartache that has been growing inside him for longer than he’s ready to admit.</p>
<p>And maybe in that moment, he falls out of love just a little bit, or maybe that’s what he wishes for. Because there’s nothing noble about suffering, in the end, and as he takes the leap of faith once more, Javi thinks that his heart had enough pain to last the rest of his life.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you so much for reading! The last line is a paraphrase from '10am Gare du Nord' by Keaton Henson, the title of this story is also taken from this song.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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